In product manufacture, considerable time and effort is involved in handling the components and parts which make up a particular product. In some cases, a part made by an outside supplier must be transported to the OEM assembling the product. In those instances where the OEM also makes the parts, there is inevitably intraplant transportation of parts from one place to another within the plant. Also, to ensure a steady product output, a substantial inventory of the various parts comprising the product must be maintained.
Conventionally, such loose parts are stored in bulk and transported in large cardboard cartons which are moved about from one place to another on pallets using a forklift. For transportation over long distances via a truck, trailer or other mobile container, the cartons are carried to the container by a forklift and stacked on their respective pallets inside the container, filling the container as much as possible. When the container reaches its destination, the cartons must be offloaded using a forklift and carried to a storage location where they are again arranged in stacks until the parts are needed for the product assembly process. At that point, a carton may be delivered by a forklift to an assembly location where the parts are withdrawn from the carton as needed.
In the course of transporting and stacking the cardboard cartons, the cartons are often deformed and weakened to the point where they sometimes split open disgorging their contents onto the floor or ground. Also, being relatively weak structures, the cartons cannot be stacked more than two or three cartons high without additional racking or support. In other words, without such additional support, the cartons lower down in the stack will collapse under the weight of those above. As a result, there is a substantial amount of wasted space in the trucks or other containers which transport the filled cartons from one place to another and in the warehouse storage spaces provided for such cartons.
Also, in order to reuse undamaged cartons, the cartons must be transported back to their point of origin. Since the cartons cannot readily be collapsed, they take up the same amount of space in the return container even though the cartons are empty.
Finally, when cartons become too damaged for reuse, they must be cut up and disposed of in a landfill or by burning, neither of which is an environmentally friendly mode of disposal.